1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an animal feeder to dispense a measured amount of dry animal feed into a tray.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous automatically operated food dispensers have been devised for the feeding of dry food to animals. Such devices have the disadvantage of being unduly complicated with both mechanical and electrical devices being heavy and cumbersome and were so expensive that there was limited cliental that could afford such feeders.
Prior devices such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,800,745, 4,722,300 and 3,206,861 use agitator or vibrating means to dispense the dry animal food. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,284,035 and 4,688,520 use a auger to dispense food and U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,520 adds water.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,280 uses a gate that opens to dispense food and U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,200 uses a pivoting scoop while U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,221 uses a rotating scoop. U.S. Pat. No. 4,079,699 uses a weight sensitive means to dispense food while U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,838 is a conditioner for premoistening dry power food. While U.S. Pat. No. 4,079,699 feeds the dry powders with rotating blades, the apparatus feeding the powders with rotating blades, the apparatus feeding the powders is keyed to providing corresponding amount of water. As can be seen there has been an abundance of animal feeders to provide food for an animal while the owner is away. None of these feeders have been a commercial success.
What is needed is a simple, low cost, high reliability animal feeder that can provide a measured amount of dry animal food at timed intervals.